Introducing... My Talking Ron!!

Hey, folks! I have a quick post for today. About a year ago, I wrote a proof-of-concept (purely) JavaScript web app modeled after the classic mobile game Talking Tom. It utilized the standard JavaScript speech recognition and synthesis libraries to achieve this.

I finally got around to finishing it up, and I'm pleased with the result. Browser compatibility is a little iffy, but it's beyond my control. It's a very simple little project, and I've released it over on GitHub for all of you to check out.

Have fun! Make Ron say some cursed stuff.

My "amazing" character design for our boy Ron 😂

Late 2014 Mac mini in 2022 - Still Worth Buying?

About a year ago, I reviewed the 2014 Mac mini on this blog. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that it was still an excellent machine for productivity tasks, but it could also handle some more intense things you threw at it. Thus, it became my daily driver up until I upgraded to a 2017 MacBook Air a few months ago. That being said, I’ve still been using it some, so I thought I’d briefly share how it’s holding up these days. Here are my thoughts on this miniature Macintosh one year later! Performance Over the last year, I’ve been impressed by how much this Mac can handle. It’s rocking a 2.6 GHz dual-core Core i5 with 8 GB of RAM and a Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB SATA SSD. What all that jargon essentially means is that it’s a moderately powerful little computer, although it certainly isn’t going to put newer Macs to shame. Regardless, I’ve been able to do lots of coding, video editing, and schoolwork on this computer, and it has generally worked pretty well. Granted, it can take a while...

I love my Instax Mini SE. Here's why!

Hey, folks! I did it. I finally got into instant photography. And I love it. Admittedly, I've had some experience with instant photography before now. I got my first instant camera at a thrift store in 2022. It was a Polaroid OneStep from the 90s, and while film was still readily available for it, it was far too expensive to justify using it regularly. As cool as instant photography was, I accepted that it wasn't economically viable for me and moved on. ...Until about a month ago! On one of my first dates with my girlfriend, she introduced me to her Fujifilm Instax Mini 11. It was a much more compact and modern instant camera than my Polaroid. It also used smaller film slides. This was a big deal, as she informed me that the smaller film came at a smaller price. I was intrigued. A couple weeks later, I ventured to Walmart and splurged. I picked up the cheapest Instax they sold: The Mini SE. It only cost about $57, and it came bundled with 10 slides of film. I also picked up an ...

Sony's CD Mavica is WEIRD (and Awesome!!)

Just when you think you've seen everything, you're gifted a still camera that saves images to compact discs . I had been aware of Sony's CD Mavica line of cameras for a while, and I had owned numerous floppy disk Mavicas, but using a CD Mavica for the first time was surreal nonetheless. There's something special about a camera with a whole optical drive in it. It reminds me a lot of a Discman. I was fortunate enough to get mine for free with all of its accessories and several blank discs. My model is the MVC-CD400, and it was one of several CD-based Mavicas in Sony's lineup. This camera, in particular, dates back to around 2002. The weird round shape is the result of cramming a whole CD mechanism in this camera. The hardware is delightfully 2000s. The entire front panel, including its surprisingly bright LCD, folds out to reveal a compact optical drive. It reads 8-centimeter "mini" CDs. These are significantly smaller than normal CDs, and while the camera ...

John Spahr

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